Sidewinder 1 (1977)

Director: Earl Bellamy

Starring: Michael Parks, Marjoe Gortner, Susan Howard, Alex Cord, Charlotte Rae, Barry Livingston, Bill Vint, Byron Morrow, Sue Ann Carpenter

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Digger...JW...and the Dragon Lady blasting across the back country of motocross - raising hell with their hot machines and foxy women!

Plot: Michael Parks plays it cool and easy as J.W. Wyatt, a blunt, scruffy, aging motocross champ who decides to endorse and help design a fancy new motorcycle for laid-back businessman Packard Gentry (Cord). Alas, Packard gets killed in a motorcycle accident, thus leaving Wyatt and his cocky, swaggering, groupie-chasing yahoo cowboy buddy assistant Digger (Gortner) at the mercy of Packard's smug, rigid, by the book advertising executive sister Chris (Howard).

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? Noop.

More by-the-numbers plotting but this is the first ever movie about motocross so it has some significance.  I'm sure this will rate higher if you're a fan of the sport.  The acting isn't bad, there's lots of race action and the picture goes exactly where you think it is.  I watched it because of Parks and Cord.  I'd keep this one on the second page of their resumes.  It's harmless motocross entertainment.  I wish I had more to say but it's pretty middle-of-the-road no matter how you slice it.

Shoot (1976)

Director: Harvey Hart

Starring: Cliff Robertson, Ernest Borgnine, Henry Silva, James Blendick, Larry Reynolds, Leslie Carlson, Kate Reid, Helen Shaver, Gloria Carlin, Alan McRae, Ed McNamara

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A thriller that begins where 'Deliverance' left off.

Plot: When boredom, pride and a mad second of misjudgement leaves a hunter shot dead by one of five combat veterans also hunting in the Canadian hills, it is expected a police investigation will follow, but when the veterans discover the incident has not been reported, the leader of the team, Major Rex (Cliff Robertson) suspects the other party maybe plotting revenge. Convinced that he, his party, and their families will be targets themselves he decides to beat his suspected assailants at their own game, grouping together more army comrades and stocking up an arsenal of weapons for the forthcoming battle.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

The first act has the boys in the woods and shit gets ugly.  I thought this was going to be a DELIVERANCE () type of clone.  Hell, I was hoping for it, but it's not.  The next act focuses on what they're going to do about it.  After one of their men is shot in the woods (the bullet grazed the guy) they get into a firefight and end up killing one of the others.  They split back to their town and play the waiting game to see what the other cats are going to do.  Rex (Robertson) does some checking into things and figures they mystery men are going to wait and try to kill them out of revenge when they return to their hunting site.  So Rex gets his ex-war buddies and the vets at the American Legion post to suit up for war.  When that happened I thought it was getting ridiculous and they started to lose me. 

SPOILERS

Then they go 'hunting' in the snowy woods, looking like something out of the European theater of WWII.  They're still losing me because this is retarded.  Who's going to go to this extreme?  Rex must be unstable, wanting to go back to war in an effort to kill the other men before they kill them.  I'm just shocked that Rex got all these other cats to load up with machine guns, assault rifles, etc and join him.  What I didn't know was that after several minutes of creeping around the woods, the other guys have been lying undercover across the river and suddenly their little army exposed themselves and machine gunned down every last man, leaving Rex alive but severely wounded.  FUCK ME, that was cool! 

I had to stop thinking and let that play out.  If I started thinking about the aftermath and how are these people going to explain this to the cops, my head would explode.  The film makers are asking an awful lot of my suspension of disbelief.  That's OK.  I had a pretty good time with it.

END OF SPOILERS...YARRRRRR!

The performances are fine.  Robertson's such a cool badass. Doug Riley's score wasn't. The story asks a lot of your intelligence when it comes to how Rex ultimately handles the situation but the outcome is fucking off the charts insanely cool and unexpected.  It's worth checking out, even if it's the shitty fullscreen VHS tape which is the only way to view it.

Book of Numbers (1973)

Director: Raymond St. Jacques

Starring: Raymond St. Jacques, Philip Michael Thomas, Freda Payne, D'Urville Martin, Sterling St. Jacques, Gilbert Green, Irma P. Hall, Doug Finell, Willie Washington Jr.

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Black King of the Numbers Game

Plot: Arkansas, 1930s: Two waiters and their protege arrive at the town of El Dorado and disclose their intention to establish the town's first numbers bank, thereby freeing the black citizens from having to support the white-run racket in the next town. They meet with opposition from the neighboring numbers bank and tragedy ensues.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

I'm a sucker for Prohibition-era gangster/crime shit and here's one with a black angle.  It's not too shabby.  Have D'Urville Martin in your movie ups the stock and entertainment value.  There's some action sprinkled into the by-the-numbers (ahahahahaha) plot.  I'm not looking for anything different with these kinds of stories so they don't have to re-invent the wheel but I do like to be entertained and this one did a fair amount of it.  Thomas was way too serious but that's the character I guess.  The only copy of this I could find anywhere is a VHS sourced DVD which is full screen and shitty.  A decent widescreen print would have been nice but you do what you have to if you really want to see it I suppose.

The Gore Gore Girls (1972)

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Starring: Frank Kress, Amy Farrell, Hedda Lubin, Henny Youngman, Russ Badger, Jackie Kroeger, Nora Alexis, Phil Laurenson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The most horrifying film you'll ever see in your life!

Plot: Strippers at a sleazy club are being mutilated at an alarming rate. A pretty reporter enlists the aid of a debonair detective to solve the case and land her a front-page story. Soon, the two are wading through evidence against a vegetable-pulverizing freak, a creepy college student, and a group of angry feminists.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.

I fell asleep on this the other night but, for fairness, I was tired.  HGL movies are the kind that you have to be awake and ready because they can be slow.  The lack of budget doesn't help, either, but he'll usually make sure there's lots of blood and boobs.  It was his last film until 30 years later.  This picture might have had more impact if it were made a few years earlier but by '72 his movies were being eclipsed by more serious horror instead of this camp.  It's the kind of picture that plays better with a group of friends and some booze.  The gore effects are sometimes pretty damn grisly and at others, laughably bad.  Frank Kress in the lead seemed like a poor choice but he's so consistently and ridiculously over the top and bad that he grows on you and you're probably laughing at him by the end.  I was.  The Something Weird Video releases usually have loads of trailers and extras but this one only has a HGL commentary and a trailer. 

Lincoln (2012)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson

More info: IMDb

Plot: As the Civil War continues to rage, America's president struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield and as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on the decision to emancipate the slaves.



My rating: 8.5/10

Will I see it again? Yes.

So I'm sittin' there watching this yesterday in a theater of about 10 and there's an elderly couple sitting in the row ahead of us. At the end of the picture I lean over and ask, "So, is this how you remember it?".  OK, I just thought about saying it.  I was really shocked by the lack of laughs there were in this picture.  Hell, there weren't even any pratfalls.  Day-Lewis was splendid and his makeup job was remarkable.  I guess we Americans have this image of Lincoln as a tall, deep-voiced, slow-moving Gregory Peck-type.  DDL's performance changed that somewhat and I really liked it.  While real-life politics disgusts me,  I enjoy it in the movies, especially when there's a historical context.

It's funny how you can be emotionally effected by something you already know the outcome.  You know the 13th amendment passes and you know Lincoln snuffs it at the theater, yet Spielberg makes a compelling movie with plenty of tension and emotional impact.  Tommy Lee Jones gets the most laughs and his character's payoff (in his final scene with his significant other) is so beautiful I was all choked up.  It's getting to me again as I talk about it.  If I have any qualms about the movie it's that it went too far.  I would have liked it more if Spielberg had stopped before Lincoln's assassination.  It didn't feel necessary to the narrative.  The entire picture was about his struggle to get the 13th amendment passed.  Maybe it was included because it represents the price he paid to see it through.  This probably has the sparsest John Williams score yet.   Well, at least I know more about the man on the penny than I did last week.

Let's Go to Prison (2006)

Director: Bob Odenkirk

Starring: Dax Shepard, Will Arnett, Chi McBride, David Koechner, Dylan Baker, Michael Shannon, Migeul Nino, Jay Whittaker, Amy Hill, David Darlow

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Welcome to the slammer

Plot: When a career criminal's plan for revenge is thwarted by unlikely circumstances, he puts his intended victim's son in his place by putting him in prison...and then joining him.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

Maybe my hopes for this were way to high (I know, what was I thinking).  Odenkirk directing, starring the great Will Arnett and badass Michael Shannon.  It's got some great laughs, I enjoyed the setup/execution and Dax Shepard is hilarious but there weren't enough funny bits to keep me engaged.  I realize it's just a comedy but I wasn't laughing nearly as much as the material and talent should have delivered.  The side story between Arnett and McBride was a gas.  That was handled well.  The ending with the winery was pretty weak but it was a pretty fun ride up to that point I suppose.

Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1964)

Director: Rene Cardona

Starring: Lorena Velazquez, Armando Silvestre, Elizabeth Campbell, Maria Eugenia San Martin, Chucho Salinas, Ramon Bugarini

More info: IMDb

Tagline: How much SHOCK can you take?

Plot: Wraslin' babes, Loretta & Venus, try to crack the heads of an Asian gang led by a Fu Manchu-like character known as "The Black Dragon," who's killing off archaeologists in hops of discovering the Treasure of the Aztecs. Entering a tomb and discovering the living remains of a mummified witch doctor who can also change himself into a spider and bat, it time for the main event

 

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Maybe, but with a crowd.

Wrestling women?  Four of 'em and right from the start.  Aztec mummy?  Not until 70 minutes (out of 99) in.

This one is almost as fun as the title.  There's lots of women wrestling (really, there's probably a total of 20 minutes of it). Plot-wise you're going to get exactly what you think.  The English dub is ridiculous but it might be just as ridiculous in Spanish.  It's got a costumed, Fu Manchu-esque villain, thugs, good guys, wrestling women and one Aztec mummy.  I love it.  When Prince Fujiyata (the bad guy) doesn't get what he wants, he offers to settle the matter once and for all by having his two Judo-chopping sisters wrestle the good guys girls and the winner takes all...but the match will be held in two weeks.

Gee, way to go perpetuating the stereotype, man.

Things I learned...wrestling women are hot! Aztec mummies can turn into bats.  Said bats can fly backwards when the shot calls for it. Aztec mummies only attack at night.  Aztec mummies seem an awfully lot like vampires.

It's not a bad way to kill some time with your friends.  There's plenty to goof on and enjoy.  Is it as educational as a museum visit?  No, but it can be just as much fun.